The race for Edinburgh now began, Cope bringing his troops by sea from Aberdeen, and Charles doing what Mar, in 1715, had never ventured.  He crossed the Forth by the fords of Frew, six miles above Stirling, passed within gunshot of the castle, and now there was no force between him and Edinburgh save the demoralised dragoons of Colonel Gardiner.  The sole use of the dragoons was, wherever they came, to let the world know that the clans were at their heels.  On September 16 Charles reached Corstorphine, and Gardiner’s dragoons fell back on Coltbridge.

On the previous day the town had been terribly perturbed.  The old walls, never sound, were dilapidated, and commanded by houses on the outside.  Volunteers were scarce, and knew not how to load a musket.  On Sunday, September 15, during sermon-time, “The bells were rung backwards, the drums they were beat,” the volunteers, being told to march against the clans, listened to the voices of mothers and aunts and of their own hearts, and melted like a mist.  Hamilton’s dragoons and ninety of the late Porteous’s Town Guard sallied forth, joining Gardiner’s men at Coltbridge.  A few of the mounted Jacobite gentry, such as Lord Elcho, eldest son of the Earl of Wemyss, trotted up to inspect the dragoons, who fled and drew bridle only at Musselburgh, six miles east of Edinburgh.

The magistrates treated through a caddie or street-messenger with the Prince.  He demanded surrender, the bailies went and came, in a hackney coach, between Charles’s quarters, Gray’s Mill, and Edinburgh, but on their return about 3 A.M.  Lochiel with the Camerons rushed in when the Nether Bow gate was opened to admit the cab of the magistrates.  Murray had guided the clan round by Merchiston.  At noon Charles entered “that unhappy palace of his race,” Holyrood; and King James was proclaimed at Edinburgh Cross, while the beautiful Mrs Murray, mounted, distributed white cockades.  Edinburgh provided but few volunteers, though the ladies tried to “force them out.”

Meanwhile Cope was landing his men at Dunbar; from Mr John Home (author of ‘Douglas, a Tragedy’) he learnt that Charles’s force was under 2000 strong.  He himself had, counting the dragoons, an almost equal strength, with six field-pieces manned by sailors.

On September 20 Cope advanced from Haddington, while Charles, with all the carriages he could collect for ambulance duty, set forth from his camp at Duddingston Loch, under Arthur’s Seat.  Cope took the low road near the sea, while Charles took the high road, holding the ridge, till from Birsley brae he beheld Cope on the low level plain, between Seaton and Prestonpans.  The manoeuvres of the clans forced Cope to change his front, but wherever he went, his men were more or less cooped up and confined to the defensive, with the park wall on their rear.

Meanwhile Mr Anderson of Whitburgh, a local sportsman who had shot ducks in the morass on Cope’s left, brought to Charles news of a practicable path through that marsh.  Even so, the path was wet as high as the knee, says Ker of Graden, who had reconnoitred the British under fire.  He was a Roxburghshire laird, and there was with the Prince no better officer.